The Bannerman Road Mob
by Rokesmith
Summary: A collection of one-shots in no particular order exploring the lives and relationships of Sarah Jane and her friends.
1. Stop the Presses

**Disclaimer: **_The Sarah Jane Adventures_ is property of the BBC.

**Author's Note:** This ficlet was a result of thinking about the fact that while several SJA fics have explored the idea of Clyde dealing with his feelings for Rani through his art, I think a trick has been missed with Rani trying to write out her own thoughts on the matter. This takes place somewhere between Seasons 4 and 5.

Stop the Presses

_And now, over to Rani Chandra with some breaking news that won't surprise anyone._

Sarah Jane says a journalist should never be afraid to tell the truth, no matter how scary it is. She also says you should get to the point quickly. The point is that I fancy Clyde.

Maybe it'll make more sense on paper. I spend all my time with Clyde and Luke. We save the world from aliens every couple of weeks. We can't tell anyone else about it so of course we're close. But now Luke's at Oxford and it's just me and Clyde. I miss Luke, and we talk on Skype whenever we can, but sometimes I don't see Clyde for a couple of days because we're busy with school work and I miss him more than I should.

Most of the guys at school just know me as the headmaster's daughter. They're nice to me but not much more. I don't mind. I've been asked out three times this year and said no every time. I barely knew the first guy. The second guy I get on with fine but that's all. The third time was last week. He makes me laugh and we help each other with English. I felt really bad saying no, but I wouldn't have been fair to him if I'd said yes. I don't want to go out with him, I want to go out with someone else. I never told Clyde about being asked out. I didn't want him to get upset. I told Luke and he just nodded like it made perfect sense. At least it makes sense to someone.

I haven't told Luke I've been thinking about Clyde more and more. Or Sarah Jane. Or my mum. We spend all our time together and for an hour and a half we were the only two people on the whole planet. But that isn't what I've been thinking about. I've been thinking about all the times he's smiled – really, properly smiled – and I've smiled too just because he's doing it. I've wondered what it'd be like to walk to school holding his hand. I've thought being older and standing in Sainsbury's arguing about what we're going to have for dinner like my parents sometimes do. I've worried about what it's going to be like when we go to university, where he's going to go and what'll happen if he meets another girl there. Sometimes I imagine all those times we've hugged after we stopped an alien, only instead of just hugging I kiss him and he kisses me back, but I can't really think what that's like because I've never really kissed a boy before.

I've just re-read what I've written. It's no wonder everyone's acting like they already know. I wonder if my mum's started planning the wedding. I don't want to ask Luke because I know he'll tell me exactly what he knows. Same with Sarah Jane.

I know Clyde likes me. Everybody knows that too. Watching him trying to pretend he doesn't is just funny. I wish I knew why he bothered. It could be any number of stupid boy reasons, but it might be serious. And this is the one thing we can't talk about. He's Clyde Langer, Defender of the Earth. He'd never tell me he's scared about liking a girl, especially when I'm the girl.

He told me he thinks if something's going to happen, it'll happen. We're friends. We're not just friends, but right now that's the most important thing. The world's going completely mad even without the aliens and I don't think I could handle it without him. Whether we're mates or something else, I love him. He might never say it but he loves me too. That's what I want. That's the truth.


	2. Looks

**Author's Note****: **My take on the a missing piece of sorts to the Clyde and Rani relationship. Takes place just before Luke goes away to Oxford.

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><p><span>Looks<span>

Sarah Jane has been expecting the question for more than an hour. It's the way Luke has been sitting in the corner of the attic, staring very intently into the middle distance. She knows the look, but she usually only sees it for a few seconds at a time when he's helping her solve a problem with aliens. If it goes on for this long it means there's some part of his normal human life that he's trying to wrap his genius-level intelligence around. He understands aliens, but even after all this time there are some parts of life that he just doesn't have a context for.

Predictably, he waits for her to finish her conversation with Mr Smith before he speaks. "Mum… what does it mean when someone looks at someone else a lot?"

"What do you mean?" she asks. "It can mean all sorts of things."

Luke thinks for a moment and then pressed on. "If someone looks at someone else, but they only do it when the other person isn't looking at them. Is that normal?"

Sarah Jane considers her options carefully, and decides to match his directness. "Luke, has someone been looking at you?"

"No," he replies.

He isn't lying, but there's an awkwardness to his response. He doesn't want to betray a confidence and he knows she'll be able to guess quickly enough who he's talking about if it isn't him.

"Someone else?" she asks, and he just nods.

He's been out all afternoon with Clyde and Rani, and he's been thinking since he came back. Two and two…

Another silent moment passes, and she realises he's waiting for her to put the pieces together before he starts talking again. "He's started looking at her a lot. More than he used to. I don't know when it started. I only noticed it after the exams. If she sees, he looks away. If she doesn't, he keeps looking. I asked about it once and he said it was nothing and told me not to be silly. I haven't asked again."

"What about her?"

"Sometimes she just looks, but most of the time it's like she's thinking about something. She smiles a lot when she thinks no one can see. I haven't asked her about it. Does it mean what I think it means?"

Sarah Jane nods. "Yes, it probably does."

"Have you seen it too?"

She smiles. "You don't get to be an investigative journalist by being blind to what's going on under your own nose."

Luke sags slightly in the chair. "I don't know what to do. Clyde never explained this."

"I'm sure he didn't. Don't do anything, Luke. This is something they'll have to deal with themselves. It might be easy or it might be hard. You're their friend and if they need your help they'll ask for it. Until then… just go on being Luke."

"Okay." Luke nods. "I can do that." He smiles. "At least, when I've left, they'll have each other."

"Oh, Luke," Sarah Jane says, "you'll still be their friend. Even in Oxford. No matter what happens between them you'll have a place in their hearts. People grow together and they grow apart. It's part of life. But we never forget the ones we love."

Luke goes quiet. He digests the information, processes it, and then files it away for the future.

"Thanks mum," he says, and leaves the attic, smiling.


	3. Day One

**Author's Note: **This is an epilogue of sorts to my fic _An Ealing Comedy_, but it could also just be a story of Clyde and Rani's early days as a couple no matter how they actually got together.

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><p><span>Day One<span>

It was a beautiful spring morning in Ealing. The road-side trees were green, the sky was mostly blue and the sun was shining. And Rani and Clyde were walking to school side by side the day after confronting the elephant that had been sitting in their particular room for nearly a year. Everything was perfect.

Except that it wasn't.

Though they were, at first glance, walking together, closer examination by someone who'd never seen them before might lead to the conclusion they were just casual acquaintances. The pair weren't talking or even really looking at each other. Once in a while one of them would glance at the other and smile or say something brief, and receive a similar response in return. This had been going on since they'd left home and they were nearly half way to Park Vale by now.

"Do you want to meet for lunch?" Rani asked.

"Yeah." Clyde nodded. "Why? Don't you?"

"Of course I do," Rani told him. "I just thought you might not. Today."

"Why'd you think that?"

"Because you've hardly said a word to me all morning!" Rani snapped. "Did you… change your mind or something?"

"You haven't said much to me either!" Clyde responded.

"I'm sorry." Rani looked away. "I was… thinking."

"About what?"

"Clyde, what are you going to say when we get to school?"

"About what?"

"Come on! About me. About… us."

Clyde shot her a hurt look. "I don't know. What are you going to say?"

Rani shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I haven't told anybody yet."

"Me neither. Didn't even change my status."

"You change your status for pizza!"

Clyde shook his head. "You don't even have yours up."

"Oh, that?" Rani shook her head. "None of my mates do. Stops guys just looking us up and asking us out because they think we'll say yes to anybody."

Clyde gave her a familiar smile, but it wasn't the one she was hoping for. "And I'm not just anybody?"

Rani looked at the pavement. "No, you're not. You know that."

The smile vanished. "What?"

She took a breath. "I thought you'd want to tell people."

"Like who? We told Luke and Maria. They'd have killed us if they'd found out over Facebook. Had to tell my mum of course. Don't see many of my old mates anymore."

"Clyde." Rani cut him off. "I'm just not looking forward to walking around school all day with everyone saying that Clyde Langer's finally pulled the Head's daughter."

"You can't blame me for gossip," Clyde replied, and then his face fell. "Oh. You thought I was going to run around school boasting to anyone who'd listen?"

Rani raked a hand through her hair. "I don't know. Clyde Langer: Teenage Boy. It's not too hard to imagine."

"Is that what your dad says?"

"No!" Rani finally rounded on him. "You annoy my dad because you won't work even though you can and you constantly wind him up. It's got nothing to do with me. And what about you? What's got you so scared you won't talk to your _girlfriend_?"

Clyde visibly flinched and Rani's eyes widened. The word neither of them had said until then hung in the air between them, impossible to take back.

"Oh," Rani said, very quietly.

Clyde finally looked up at her. "If I told anyone at school I'd kissed you they'd think it was a wind-up. Sure, we're mates, but the school joker and the Head's daughter? That's never going to happen."

Rani bit her lip, wondering what to say. She wanted to take his hand or kiss him to prove him wrong, but she knew he'd flinch if she tried. So eventually she just gave him her best, brightest smile.

"But who says Rani Chandra can't fall for Clyde Langer because he's her best friend and he makes her really, really happy?"

He gave her a very rare nervous, awkward half-smile and turned away. He didn't do it quickly enough to stop her seeing him blush.

They walked along for another few moments before Rani asked, "Did you think we'd get to school and I'd want to pretend nothing happened?"

"Maybe." Clyde shrugged. "I don't know, do I?"

"Clyde, we've known each other for years. You should have some idea how I think by now."

"When you were my friend, yeah. But now you're…"

He tailed off, looked up at her and then away. They rounded the final corner and headed towards the sounds of Park Vale's before-school rush.

"Why don't we just try and get through today and worry about it later?" Rani suggested. "We've both got coursework marks to find out and the mock results will be in soon. And you never know, maybe aliens will invade and give us something to do."

"Something to look forward to," Clyde remarked.

"So… I'll see you at lunch, yeah?"

She turned to go, and Clyde caught her hand. She felt her heart jump with something equal parts fear and excitement. Here they were, in the middle of the school car park, and Clyde was holding her hand. She looked back at him, at his uncharacteristic expression of fear.

"Girlfriend," he said, forcing the word out. "You're my girlfriend."

Rani smiled. "Yeah. I am."

She leaned forward and, in front of the whole school, kissed his cheek.

Clyde smiled in relief, and reached up and gently brushed the spot. "Why'd you do that?"

"You're going to have to stop sounding so surprised," Rani told him. "I wanted to. And it'll save us telling everyone ourselves."

"Meet you behind the bike shed at break?" Clyde suggested.

"Nice try, but you've got to finish your homework some time," Rani said. "I've got to get to English."

She finally let go of his hand and turned away. She did her best not to look back, but couldn't help it. Clyde grinned at her and waved before dashing towards the art block.

She turned back and nearly walked into Sky Smith.

"Hi, Rani. You look very happy."

Rani caught sight of her reflection in one of the windows and realised she was smiling ridiculously widely. There was no way they would have been able to keep this quiet even if they'd wanted to.

"Is this because Clyde's your boyfriend now?" Sky asked.

If possible, Rani's smile grew even brighter. She liked the sound of that. She liked it a lot.

"Yeah," she said. "It is."


	4. Bad Dreams

**Author's Note:** This story takes place some time after _The Stolen Earth/Journey's End_ but before _The Last Sontaran_. It also contains references (and possibly extremely minor spoilers) for several episodes of classic _Doctor Who_, particularly _Planet of the Spiders_ and _The Genesis of the Daleks_.

* * *

><p><span>Bad<span> Dreams

She'd seen such beautiful things out in space. But she'd seen terrible things too.

It was very late – so late she was sure it was early – and Sarah Jane paced her attic. She cradled a half empty cup of Aunt Lavinia's patented insomnia cure, but the warm milk had gone cold now. Behind her, the computer's word processor waited expectantly for her to start writing an article she couldn't even focus on enough to think of a subject. Every few minutes she thought about activating Mr Smith, but he would only ask her what was wrong.

Behind her, the attic door creaked. She turned to see Luke poke his head through.

"Mum? Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. Go back to bed."

"But you've been up here for an hour and twenty-three minutes," Luke told her, closing the attic door behind him. "Before that, I think you were awake in your room, but I'm not sure."

"There's nothing wrong," she said, trying to smile. "I just can't sleep, that's all."

"Maria says she sees your light on sometimes late at night."

Sarah Jane sank onto the sofa, not for the first time wondering what to say to her son. "You don't dream, do you, Luke?" she asked eventually.

"No. But Clyde says it's overrated."

That made her smile. "I think Clyde might be right this time."

"Is that why you can't sleep? Because of your dreams?"

"Yes."

A familiar expression of confusion crept over Luke's face. "I don't understand."

"When I was younger, after the Doctor left, I used to dream he'd come back for me and all the places we'd go. He'd take me all across the universe, just like he used to and sometimes… sometimes Harry would be there too."

"Did this make you sad?"

"Yes. But it made me happy too. Because I could still imagine him out there, having adventures and that one day he'd remember me and come back."

"He did come back, though."

"Yes, he did. It took him a lot longer than I'd hoped." She smiled. "But then precise navigation never was his strong suit."

Luke nodded and thought for a moment. "Do you still have those dreams?"

She shook her head. "No. I stopped having those dreams a long time ago. After he came back, I started again, but just memories of when I travelled with him. But when I woke up, I'd be in my bed at home and I wouldn't mind because I had you down the corridor and Maria across the street. I was safe."

"Safe?"

"Yes. Safe. Because I thought no matter what happened, I had my family and no one could take that away from me."

"Then the Daleks came."

She flinched and looked up sharply. Sometimes she forgot how clever Luke was. He wouldn't have forgotten seeing her completely terrified as the artificial voices screamed at the Earth.

"Yes," she admitted weakly. "Them. And… him. Davros. We were there, on Skaro, all those years ago. The Doctor tried to stop him from creating them, but he couldn't. I saw Davros die. The Daleks killed him like they killed everyone else. But there he was after all this time and _he remembered me_."

She was shaking. She hadn't realised how badly until Luke wrapped his arms around her and held her until it subsided. She took a long, deep breath and tried to blink away the tears in her eyes.

"That's when I started dreaming again, and they were all there. Daleks, Sontarans, spiders that make me hurt my friends, aliens that use me to rebuild their bodies, Wirnn chasing me through air vents, friends turning into robots, masked men trying to sacrifice me to alien energy beings…"

She made herself stop for breath, gulping air as she hung onto Luke. "But that isn't the worst dream," she continued eventually. "The worst one is about him. The TARDIS lands, and he falls out of it, just like he did when I saw him regenerate. He tells me not to cry, and he dies, and nothing happens. He doesn't change, he just lies there dead. And it's not always him. Sometimes it's the tall one who came afterwards, and I cry into his shirt like I did on Mars but he doesn't wake up. And sometimes it's the one you saw."

"But they're just dreams, mum," Luke said quietly. "They're not real. He's real. He didn't die. I'm real. So are Clyde and Maria."

He held her for a few minutes as she let herself sob. When the tears finally cleared and she looked up her eyes caught the window and she could see the faintest hint of blue in the sky outside. She dried her eyes and smiled.

"I don't know what I'd do without you, Luke. I was so lonely all those years, but now I've got dreams for the future instead of dreams about the past."

Luke smiled. "Maybe dreams aren't overrated after all."

"Maybe not. Now, come on. No point going back to bed now. Let's have an early breakfast."

"Sure, mum. But… why don't you let me cook it?"

Sarah Jane sighed. "All right."

She got up, stretched, and opened the attic door.

"Mum… did you really get chased through air vents?"

"Oh yes. And I once got chased through a wood by a walking Egyptian mummy."

"But mummies are embalmed corpses. They don't walk."

"Well, these ones did," Sarah Jane responded indignantly. "Tell you what, you cook and I'll tell you all about it."


	5. Absent Friends

_This story is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Ian Marter, 1944-1986._

Absent Friends

Sarah Jane hadn't told anyone the real reason for her trip into town. Even Luke hadn't really asked, assuming it was work. Which, in part, it was. An expert from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine had agreed to talk to her about the people in and around the city who'd recently been coming down with illnesses that, while they were mild, didn't seem related to any known Earth bacteria. It was a lunch meeting, but she'd gone in earlier because her expert was giving a lecture as part of a series hosted by the Lancet. He was giving the vaccine community's annual Sullivan Lecture.

Sarah Jane listened for an hour about co-operation between worldwide military services and the medical community to distribute vaccines to fight isolated pockets of disease, making notes in case there was any interest in an article. When it was over, she was one of the last to leave, walking down the school's steps, but stopping at the bottom in front of the day's timetable. The lecture's subject was printed beneath a picture of a curly-haired man who would remain always young, always smiling and always looking dashing in his Royal Navy uniform.

"Hello, Harry."

"Are you alright?"

She jumped at the sound of the voice. Her eyes were wet, and she wiped them quickly, turning to face the gangly young man standing next to her. He looked nervous, awkward, but there was an unmistakable look of concern on his face.

"Oh yes," she said. "Fine. I didn't mean to worry you."

"Were you a colleague of Doctor Sullivan?"

Sarah Jane shook her head. "No. A friend. A very long time ago, we… worked together. I'm a journalist, my name's Sarah Jane Smith."

"Rory. Rory Williams."

"Are you a medical student, Rory?"

He shook his head. "Just a nurse."

"Nobody's 'just' anything."

He looked at her thoughtfully, like he was trying to remember something. "Sarah Jane Smith? I've read some of your work, I think."

She smiled. "Oh? What did you think of it?"

"It was… interesting." He paused again. "But… you wrote the introduction to Doctor Sullivan's last book, didn't you? The one they published after…"

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I did."

She hadn't thought about that in so long. Twenty years ago, alone in her big empty house, pressing typewriter keys that seemed to weigh a ton as she tried to put into words what a good man Harry Sullivan had been.

The tears were threatening again, and she blinked them back and asked, "How did you know?"

"I had a tutor when I was training who'd worked with him," Rory explained. "He told me if I really wanted to understand how medicine could help make the world better I should read that book. So I did. If you don't mind me asking… did you know him well?"

"He was my best friend," she told him. "For a long time it felt like he was my only friend. We saw such amazing things together, things you wouldn't believe, and afterwards he was the only person I could talk to about it. He was so clever, so kind and so brave and I wish… well, I wish a lot of things."

She blinked sharply and looked away, caught between sadness and embarrassment. "Oh, look at me. I'm so sorry."

"It's alright," Rory said, producing a tissue from his jeans. "Here."

"Thank you."

Then, from somewhere down below, a voice with a distinctly Scottish accent floated echoed through the building. "Oi! Rory! Where are you? You said we'd go for lunch and you know what Mels is like when she gets hungry!"

A series of conflicting expressions passed across the young man's face before he finally said, "I have to go."

Sarah Jane looked at her watch. "Yes, so do I. It was nice to meet you, Rory."

"It was nice to meet you too, Miss Smith."

He turned away, walked towards the stairs, and then stopped. "What… what do you wish?"

Sarah Jane gave him a sad smile. "I wish Luke could have known him."

She expected him to ask who Luke was, but he didn't. He just nodded and disappeared down the stairs. A few seconds later she heard him apologising to the owner of the Scottish accent and that was enough to make her smile.

And before she headed off to her lunch interview, she looked at the smiling sailor one last time. "Goodbye, Harry. See you next year."


End file.
